Congenital syphilis in Argentina: Experience in a pediatric hospital

by Luciana Noem í Garcia, Alejandra Destito Solján, Samanta Moroni, Nicolas Falk, Nicolás Gonzalez, Guillermo Moscatelli, Griselda Ballering, Facundo García Bournissen, Jaime M. Altcheh

In spite of being preventable, Congenital syphilis (CS) is still an important, and growing health problem worldwide. Fetal infection can be particularly aggressive, but newborns can be asymptomatic at birth and, if left untreated, develop systemic compromise afterwards with poor prognosis. We anal yzed 61 CS diagnosis cases between 1987–2019 presenting at the Buenos Aires Children’ Hospital. The distribution of cases showed a bimodal curve, with a peak in 1992–1993 and in 2014–2017. Median age at diagnosis was 2 months (IQ 1–6 months). The main clinical findings were: bone alteratio ns (59%); hepatosplenomegaly (54.1%); anemia (62.8%); skin lesions (42.6%) and renal compromise (33.3%). Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) was abnormal in 5 patients, normal in 45 and was not available for 11 patients. Remarkably, spinal lumbar puncture did not modify therapeutic decisions in any case. Betw een mothers, only 46% have been tested for syphilis during pregnancy and 60.5% patients had non-treponemal titers equal to or less than fourfold the maternal titer. Intravenous penicillin G was prescribed for all except one patient, who received ceftriaxone with good therapeutic response. During fol low-up, 1.6% infants died, 6.5% had persistent kidney disorders and 1.6% showed bone sequelae damage. RPR t...

Source: PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases - January 6, 2021 Category: Tropical Medicine Authors: Luciana Noem í Garcia Source Type: research